The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving only the city's street lamps to pierce the gloom. Around this time, the only people still wandering the pavements were either overworked office drones racing home, or individuals engaged in vaguely criminal business.
Yet among the occasional passersby, there was one person who stood out.
A young man, barely past his mid-twenties, wandered the street with his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of a pristine white lab coat. His skin was pale, the kind that hadn't seen proper sunlight in years, and his overgrown, unkempt hair swayed with every passing breeze. Lost in thought, he looked more like a misplaced theoretical model than a living, breathing human.
This was Einar Nordgren.
'If tensors can compress under local field stress, and if spatial tesseracts can overlap on a higher axis... then, in theory, two entirely unrelated 3D spaces could briefly share a singularity interface — oh sh—'
A blaring horn interrupted his train of thought.
Einar blinked. He was already halfway across the crosswalk. The headlights were far too close.
Like a reindeer caught in a physics lecture, he froze.
And that was the last the Earth ever saw of Einar Nordgren.
…
Sunlight. Bright and glaring.
Those were the first coherent thoughts in Einar's jumbled mind.
Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes and glanced toward the source of the irritating photons — a set of large, floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Where the heck are the curtains?" he groaned, immediately turning away.
The voice was hoarse... and unfamiliar.
Then came the other senses.
Aches in his limbs. Itchy, rough clothes. The scent of dust and old wood. A low-pitched ringing in his ears.
None of it felt like the mornings (or more realistically, afternoons) he was used to.
For a moment, he just lay there in a daze — until the memories of "last night" came crashing down like a badly animated PowerPoint presentation.
'—it!'
His vision narrowed. Breath hitched. Heart pounded.
And behind the rising panic, one stubborn, rational conclusion surfaced:
He was having a panic attack.
Panic Attack 101: Count backwards from 100 by 7s.
'100'
'93'
'86'
'79'
'73'
'67'
No, wait! 67 + 6 = 73. It's 66, you idiot! 66 + 7 = 73.
Argh! What do I do? Count again from 100 or just commit to 66?
…
Several minutes and two logic loops later, he had calmed himself down — only for another epiphany to hit him, this time in the form of an old black-and-white movie montage of his life.
More minutes passed. More self-soothing. More denial.
And eventually, Einar sat up in bed, leaning against the headrest, his face buried in his hands.
No... they weren't his hands.
They were someone else's — yet strangely, the name Einar Nordgren still applied.
And, according to his physicist brain, that was statistically impossible.
Coincidence? No such thing.
"Heh." A dry chuckle escaped his cracked lips. "So much for believing in science."
With a reluctant sigh, he pried his hands away and looked down.
Smaller. Smoother. No ink stains, no calluses — just clean, unblemished skin.
Definitely not the same hands that had rewritten particle decay equations at 3 a.m.
Guess I should check out the rest of me.
Gripping the headrest, he dragged himself off the bed. His bare feet touched cold wooden floorboards — lacquered once, long ago, now chipped and splintered at the edges.
He wobbled a bit, legs still weak, but managed to shuffle toward a corner where a dressing table sat beneath a layer of dust. No perfumes, no combs — just a battered hairbrush and a cracked mirror.
Bracing against the table, he looked up.
And froze.
He already knew, from the foreign memories in his head, what to expect — but seeing it for himself still hit hard.
The reflection showed a face he recognized. Angular features, pale skin, black hair, and grey-tinted eyes.
It was him. Just… younger.
High school-age younger.
Once again, his physicist brain screamed: Not a coincidence.
"So there really is such a thing as supernatural forces," Einar muttered.
He didn't have long to ponder, though — because right then, the door creaked open.
"Young master Einar," came a voice, dripping with mock respect.
A maid stood in the doorway, hands primly clasped.
"The Lord has summoned you."
Ah yes, Einar thought, there's one thing that's definitely new.
Squinting, he gave her the barest nod. "Message received. You may leave."
A flicker of surprise crossed her face. She wasn't used to being spoken to like that, apparently.
But before she could muster a retort — maybe some faux-concerned remark about caring for the young master — he turned away and stepped into the small adjoining bathroom.
Alone again, Einar took stock of his surroundings.
The so-called bathroom was nothing more than a drafty wooden alcove. The same cold floorboards stretched beneath his feet, and the air carried a permanent chill.
A squat iron basin sat on a crooked stand, beside a chipped ceramic pitcher — empty, naturally. A stone spout jutted from the wall, stained from use. Below it, a faintly glowing rune shimmered on the stone.
Magic plumbing? Huh. Not the weirdest thing I've seen today.
In the corner, behind a thin screen, sat a raised stone seat. Another rune glowed beside it.
Flushing system confirmed. Doesn't explain the smell, though.
He activated the spout using the memory embedded in his new mind — the rune flickered, and a small stream of water trickled forth.
Einar splashed his face.
Cold. Very cold. And humbling.
Plumbing exists. Physics doesn't. Fantastic. Priorities, apparently.
The shock of cold helped sharpen his thoughts.
He — a physicist, a researcher, a future Nobel Prize nominee (at least in his own dreams) — had died and woken up in a magic world. In the body of a younger version of himself.
Magic, monsters, aristocrats.
And yes, apparently he was one of them.
'From a bundled baby abandoned in front of an orphanage with nothing but a name card, to being the neglected fourth son of an almost broke baron. That's... progress?
Shrugging, he reached for a linen towel hanging on a hook. It felt like sandpaper and regret, but it got the job done.
"Time to meet my father," he muttered, straightening his back.
"Though I already have an idea of what he's going to say."